Human Rights Council Elections, a Flawed Process at Heart

By Jacques Fomerand

June 23 – In January 2003, Libya was elected to chair the United Nations Commission on Human Rights. For many who had pilloried the agency for being biased, unbalanced and politicized, this was the last straw. Seven years later, on May 13, 2010, Libya was among 14 countries elected by the General Assembly to serve on the Human Rights Council for three-year terms starting June 19.

The General Assembly elected 14 new members to the Human Rights Council in May, including Libya, to the consternation of human rights groups. Aliza Eliazarov/UN Photo

More recently, on June 21, Thailand’s ambassador to the UN in Geneva was named the newest president of the council for one year. Sihasak Phuangketkeow, 52, a sole candidate of the Asian group, becomes the fifth president of the 47-member group, succeeding Alex van Meeuwen of Belgium. (Thailand was elected to the council in the May voting; Navi Pillay, the UN high commissioner for human rights has called for an investigation into protests in the country this spring. Sihasak responded by saying an independent commission was being set up.)

Libya received the lowest number of votes, 155, of any country in any region in the election, but its election generated the most vocal outcry from human rights groups, who called it “undemocratic,” “pre-cooked” or “just a joke.” These words and other criticisms were lobbed by nongovernmental organizations to describe the new members of the council, which was established in 2006 as a fresh start on a formerly disgraced entity. Some contended of the recent elections that human rights violators were even taking over.

Only 5 of the 14 countries, according to Freedom House and UN Watch, two watchdog organizations, had credible human rights records: the Maldives, Guatemala, Spain, Switzerland and Poland. All the others, besides Libya, had “questionable” credentials or were “unqualified,” according to human rights groups: Angola, Ecuador, Malaysia, Mauritania, Moldova, Qatar, Thailand and Uganda.

US Reaction

Susan Rice, the US ambassador to the UN, was more restrained when speaking to the media on May 13 to a question about Iran’s unsuccessful bid for a seat on the council. She expressed “regret” that numerous countries had “problematic” records. Reiterating the US position, which had reversed the previous administration’s decision to shun the new rights body because it was not much of an improvement over its predecessor, Rice said that however “flawed” the council might be, it was preferable “to work from within to shape and reform.”

To avoid the problems that had tarnished the reputation of the earlier Human Rights Commission, the General Assembly in 2006 made a provision for a system of elections that also laid down some ground rules of eligibility for countries interested in sitting on the Human Rights Council. But it left untouched the root cause of the trouble that had plagued the commission, thus paving the way for the skewed results of this year’s election, including the presidency: the UN regional groups.

As has been done in the past, the council’s 47 seats are apportioned among the 5 regional groups of the UN. Every year, a third of the council membership comes up for renewal. Theoretically, any UN member can run by winning the required 97 majority votes in the General Assembly. In practice, however, candidates first sound out and seek the endorsement from their regional group, including dropping off gold-foiled chocolates on delegations’ desks, according to the blog UN Elections.org. Once secured, in most cases, the choices are not contested.

The More Things Change . . .

What happened this year is that for the first time since the council was created, the number of candidates for each region equaled the number of seats earmarked for the region. The regional groups put forward clean slates, which no other regional group or single country challenged – thus eliminating any competition. (The highest-scoring candidate was the Maldives, with 185 votes.)

These imperfections have also been compounded by the reality that powerful nations, especially the permanent members of the Security Council, are hardly ever denied a seat on elective bodies, although now they may not serve for more than two consecutive terms. In any event, China, Russia and the US did make it –unopposed -to the council in 2009.

Screening and weeding out states with questionable human rights records can be a haphazard process with surprising twists. Venezuela and Iran were kept out of the council in 2006; Belarus failed in its bid for election in 2007, as did Sri Lanka and Azerbaijan in the 2008 and 2009, respectively. Iran’s bid this year was dropped after much internal backroom bargaining, which resulted, however, in its securing a nomination for a seat on the Commission on the Status of Women. (Ambassador Rice, speaking on May 13 to the media, did say that Iran’s seat on the Commission on the Status of Women was “an unfortunate outcome.”)

Regional groups may be artificial creations but they are deeply entrenched in the multilateral culture of the UN, serving primarily as mechanisms for filling in vacancies in virtually all UN intergovernmental bodies. Western nations whose own human rights records are not always praiseworthy also rely on the system. In fact, in both 2009 and 2010 the West abandoned competitive elections for the council.

Human rights concerns have always been politicized, leaving little room for consistent norms and standards but ample space for bartering and deal-making. Indeed, preparations should already be starting in earnest for the next council political drama, as the General Assembly mobilizes to assess the council’s first five years of operation in March 2011.

Jacques Fomerand, who teaches at John Jay College of the City University of New York, Seton Hall University and Occidental College, wrote “A Dictionary of the United Nations.” He is completing a study on the practice of human rights.

Keywords: Human Rights Council